When Weisz became a professional
magician, he began calling himself "Harry Houdini" after the French magician
Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, whose
autobiography he read in 1890. In later life, Houdini claimed the first part of his new name, Harry, was an homage to American magician
Harry Kellar whom he also admired – though it was likely adapted from "Ehri", a nickname for "Ehrich", which is how he was known to his family. A teenage Houdini was coached by magician
Joseph Rinn at the Pastime Athletic Club. (seated left) c. 1901 Houdini began his magic career in 1891, but had little success. He appeared in a tent act with strongman
Emil Jarrow. He performed in
dime museums and sideshows, and even doubled as "The Wild Man" at a circus. Initially, Houdini focused on traditional card tricks. At one point, he billed himself as the "King of Cards". Some – but not all – professional magicians came to regard Houdini as a competent but not particularly skilled sleight-of-hand artist, lacking the grace and finesse required to achieve excellence in that craft. They performed at the
Chicago World's Fair in 1893 before returning to New York City and working at Huber's Dime Museum for "near-starvation wages". Houdini's big break came in 1899 when he met manager
Martin Beck in
Saint Paul, Minnesota. Impressed by Houdini's
handcuffs act, Beck advised him to concentrate on escape acts and booked him on the
Orpheum vaudeville circuit. Within months he was performing at the top vaudeville houses in the country. In 1900 Beck arranged for Houdini to tour Europe. After some days of unsuccessful interviews in London, Houdini's British agent
Harry Day helped him to get an interview with C. Dundas Slater, then manager of the
Alhambra Theatre. He was introduced to
William Melville and gave a demonstration of escape from handcuffs at
Scotland Yard. He succeeded in baffling the police so effectively that he was booked at the Alhambra for six months. His show was an immediate hit and his salary rose to $300 a week (). Between 1900 and 1920 Houdini appeared in theatres all over Great Britain performing escape acts, illusions, card tricks and outdoor stunts, becoming one of the world's highest-paid entertainers. He also toured the Netherlands, Germany, France and Russia and became widely known as The Handcuff King. In each city Houdini challenged local police to restrain him with
shackles and lock him in their jails. In many of these challenge escapes he was first
stripped nude and searched. In
Moscow he escaped from a
Siberian prison transport van, Houdini won the case when he opened the judge's safe. (He later said the judge had forgotten to lock it.) With his new-found wealth Houdini purchased a dress said to have been made for
Queen Victoria, then arranged a grand reception where he presented his mother, wearing the dress, to all their relatives. Houdini said it was the happiest day of his life. In 1904 Houdini returned to the U.S. and purchased a house for $25,000 (), a
brownstone at 278 W. 113th Street in
Harlem, New York City. While on tour in Europe in 1902 Houdini visited
Blois with the aim of meeting the widow of Emile Houdin, the son of
Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, for an interview and permission to visit his grave. He did not receive permission but visited the grave regardless. Houdini felt he had been dealt with unfairly and later wrote a negative account of the incident in his magazine, claiming he was "treated most discourteously by Madame W. Emile Robert-Houdin". In 1906 Houdini created his own publication, the ''Conjurers' Monthly Magazine
. It competed with The Sphinx'', but was short-lived and only two volumes were released until August 1908. Magic historian
Jim Steinmeyer noted that "Houdini couldn't resist using the journal for his own crusades, attacking his rivals, praising his own appearances, and subtly rewriting history to favor his view of magic." in
Boston in 1908 From 1907 and throughout the 1910s Houdini performed with great success in the United States. He freed himself from jails, handcuffs, chains, ropes and
straitjackets, often while hanging from a rope in sight of street audiences. Because of imitators, Houdini put his "handcuff act" behind him on January 25, 1908, and began escaping from a locked, water-filled milk can. The possibility of failure and death thrilled his audiences. Houdini also expanded his repertoire with his escape challenge act, in which he invited the public to devise contraptions to hold him. These included nailed packing crates (sometimes lowered into water), riveted boilers, wet sheets,
mail bags, and even the belly of a
whale that had washed ashore in Boston. Brewers in
Scranton, Pennsylvania, and other cities challenged Houdini to escape from a barrel after they had filled it with beer. Many of these challenges were arranged with local merchants in one of the first uses of mass
tie-in marketing. Rather than promote the idea that he was assisted by spirits, as did the
Davenport Brothers and others, Houdini's advertisements showed him making his escapes via
dematerializing, although Houdini himself never claimed to have supernatural powers. After much research, Houdini wrote a collection of articles on the history of magic, which were expanded into
The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin published in 1908. He attacked his former idol Robert-Houdin as a liar and a fraud for having claimed the invention of automata and effects such as
aerial suspension, which had been in existence for many years. Many of the allegations in the book were dismissed by magicians and researchers who defended Robert-Houdin. Magician
Jean Hugard would later write a full rebuttal to Houdini's book. Houdini introduced the
Chinese Water Torture Cell at the Circus Busch in
Berlin,
Germany, on September 21, 1912. He was suspended upside-down in a locked glass-and-steel cabinet full to overflowing with water, holding his breath for more than three minutes. He would go on performing this escape for the rest of his life. During his career, Houdini explained some of his tricks in books written for the magic brotherhood. In
Handcuff Secrets (1909), he revealed how many locks and handcuffs could be opened with properly applied force, others with shoestrings. Other times, he carried concealed
lockpicks or keys. When tied down in ropes or
straitjackets, he gained wiggle room by enlarging his shoulders and chest, moving his arms slightly away from his
body. He had purchased this trick from the magician
Charles Morritt. In 1923, Houdini became president of
Martinka & Co., America's oldest magic company. The business is still in operation today. He also served as president of the
Society of American Magicians ( S.A.M.) from 1917 until his death in 1926. Founded on May 10, 1902, in the back room of Martinka's magic shop in New York, the Society expanded under the leadership of Harry Houdini during his term as national president from 1917 to 1926. Houdini was magic's greatest visionary: He sought to create a large, unified national network of professional and amateur magicians. Wherever he traveled, he gave a lengthy formal address to the local magic club, made speeches, and usually threw a banquet for the members at his own expense. He said "The Magicians Clubs as a rule are small: they are weak ... but if we were amalgamated into one big body the society would be stronger, and it would mean making the small clubs powerful and worthwhile. Members would find a welcome wherever they happened to be and, conversely, the safeguard of a city-to-city hotline to track exposers and other undesirables". For most of 1916, while on his vaudeville tour, Houdini had been recruitingat his own expenselocal magic clubs to join the S.A.M. in an effort to revitalize what he felt was a weak organization. Houdini persuaded groups in Buffalo, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City to join. As had happened in London, he persuaded magicians to join. The Buffalo club joined as the first branch, (later assembly) of the Society. Chicago Assembly No. 3 was, as the name implies, the third regional club to be established by the S.A.M., whose assemblies now number in the hundreds. In 1917, he signed Assembly Number Three's charter into existence; that charter and this club continue to provide Chicago magicians with a connection to each other and to their past. Houdini dined with, addressed, and got pledges from similar clubs in Detroit, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Cincinnati and elsewhere – the biggest movement ever in the history of magic. In places where no clubs existed, he rounded up individual magicians, introduced them to each other, and urged them into the fold. By the end of 1916, magicians' clubs in San Francisco and other cities that Houdini had not visited were offering to become assemblies. He had created the richest and longest-surviving organization of magicians in the world. Currently, it embraces almost 6,000 dues-paying members and almost 300 assemblies worldwide. In July 1926, Houdini was elected President of the Society of American Magicians for the ninth successive time (every other president served for only one year). He was also President of the Magicians' Club of London. In the final years of his life (1925/26), Houdini launched his own full-evening show, which he billed as "Three Shows in One: Magic, Escapes, and Fraud Mediums Exposed". ==Notable escapes==